'People are dropping like flies' - Prendergast calls for handicapping changes

After celebrating his 90th birthday last month, Kevin Prendergast is still producing the winners out of his Curragh base but feels change is needed if more trainers are to stay in business.

Prendergast finally got off the mark for the season with a 6-1 double at Tramore on Saturday evening, but observed that fellow trainers were "dropping like flies".

The multiple Classic-winning trainer remains as hungry as ever and saw Alaroos land the opening fillies' maiden at 7-4 before Butterfly Garden justified 13-8 favouritism in the 1m4f rated race.

While Prendergast is showing no signs of slowing down, he feels the Irish handicapping system has to be altered and believes Ireland, and even Britain, should start looking to systems in France or Australia for inspiration if they are to keep trainers in business.

Kevin Prendergast: 'We’ll kick on until the end of the year and see what happens'Credit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

"The system has to be rectified. It makes little difference to me, I’m very long in the tooth to be worrying about that stuff, but it has to be looked at," said Prendergast.

"In other countries if a horse runs second or third, his mark is not affected until he wins. If a horse runs in Australia in a weight-for-age race with a handicap mark and runs well, he still has to run off the same mark that he had if he goes back into a handicap.

"The conditions race might have suited him on the day, but he might not have improved a pound, so he has to run off the same mark as he had in the handicap.

"If a horse runs well in Ireland, or even England sometimes, he or she could go up any amount in a race. These things are making it very hard to keep going in racing. Until someone comes along and does something about it, it’ll be a tough fight.

"People are dropping like flies, especially in England. Harry Dunlop was another during the week to hang up his boots. It wasn't as if he was short of training a winner."

While Saturday’s two winners were his first since November, Prendergast is still hoping to keep the ball rolling throughout the autumn months.

He said: "As the fella says it’s better late than never. Hopefully there’ll be something nice for the pair of them in the autumn. It all depends on what the assessor does.

"They’re two nice fillies with good pedigrees. Butterfly Garden could have got me a winner sooner at Sligo a week ago but these things happen."

Prendergast may be managing a smaller team than usual but the Curragh handler is showing no signs of stopping just yet.

"We’ll kick on until the end of the year and see what happens. When you’re down to 12 or 14 horses, the staff have to be looked after, so it becomes a sort of burden trying to get winners. I just love the game, and I’ll keep at it for as long as I can."

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